The Road to School | How SEENCH turns hidden barriers into practical, human-centred solutions
A child may not leave school because she lacks ambition, but because the road to the next classroom is too far and unsafe. Through SEENCH’s work in tribal villages of Raigad, this field essay explores the hidden barriers beneath visible social problems, from school transport to menstrual health and youth employability. It asks a deceptively simple question: what changes when compassion begins by noticing the real obstruction?
Books We Argue With
Four books, four difficult questions: what are phones doing to childhood, who holds Big Tech accountable, why have societies forgotten how to build, and how seriously should we fear AI? This edition of Margin Notes reads Jonathan Haidt, Sarah Wynn-Williams, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, and Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares as provocations rather than verdicts. For readers who want better questions, not easier answers.
The Country Between Two Speeds
India is moving at extraordinary speed, through technology, ambition, infrastructure and new confidence. But beneath the growth story lie quieter questions about care, education, attention, belonging and who gets left behind. This India Notebook asks whether progress can be measured only by what a country builds, or also by what it learns to protect as it moves forward.
One Drop of Humanity
Blood donation is one of the few acts of public care offered without knowing who will receive it. Marking World Blood Donor Day, this essay follows the quiet chain that begins with an ordinary person giving an hour of their time and may end in another person’s survival. It argues that regular voluntary donation is more than generosity; it is a habit of citizenship, preparedness and trust between strangers.
The Year the Streets Spoke
Across the past year, young people, workers and citizens returned to the streets from Kathmandu and Belgrade to Tbilisi, Manila and beyond. This visual essay traces the protests behind the headlines: corruption, broken infrastructure, rising costs, democratic anxiety and basic services that no longer work. These images are not a celebration of unrest, but a map of the promises people no longer believe institutions will keep.